Today we trogged up to Davie Street and then caught the C23 bus down the hill to Safeways. English readers will gratefully latch onto a shop name which they recognise. Believe me, I sympathise. I feel completely adrift here. Not only do I not see shop names and brand names which I recognise, but I don't even have a clue of the meaning of the shop and brand names which I do see. They might as well be in a foreign language. I know this is purely experential - of course anyone coming to England from here won't know from the name what Evans sells, nor where they can buy clothes for larger women. So when we see a name we recognise, we feel a little relieved.
Unfortunately, just because Safeways Canada retains the intrinsic nature of Safeways England, viz. the selling of foodstuffs, that doesn't mean we know what we're doing. We found honey and garlic chicken wings in the deli section, which Sarah golloped down quite happily when we got home, and I found meat loaf. (Meat! In a loaf! Who could possibly complain?) As to which butter we should buy, or which soup tastes nicest when Heinz isn't available... well, that's trickier. We may be experimenting for a while.
Fans of good skin will be pleased to note the overwhelming opportunities available here:
... while some product lines really need a rethink:
At the checkout, we met the American practice of a second shop assistant packing our bags for us. In England you tend to pack your own, although they have been asking "Do you need help packing?" for a while now. This has felt particularly insulting when I approach the checkout with two bottles of Diet Coke and a couple of bagels; I'm fairly sure there isn't a disease which scrambles nerve impulses in the arms and affects people only when plastic bags are nearby, and if I can make it to the checkout with an armful of groceries, or even with a basket, it's safe to assume I can pack them. If the supermarket wants to look like it cares about people who have a problem handling groceries, surely they should station staff near the entrances, asking "Do you need help shopping?"
Out here it's a given, though: no matter how little you're presenting to buy, it'll get packed for you. I don't know whether this is because they don't trust people not to run off without paying, or, more likely, because it makes businesses feel socially acceptable by creating 'jobs' for the elderly and mentally ill, paying minimum wage for them to pack your groceries at mind-numbingly slow speeds while engaging you in conversation about effective denture fixatives, or the colour green.
Today's grocery packer was sporting a left arm in a cast: never a good sign, even if by chance it was some kind of work-related wound, demonstrating a packing speed which sometimes accelerated into the realms of the dangerous. Now, it's possible all his brain cells were there. But if so, I can promise you that today we learned that Canadian idiom is more American than English.
"I see you've bought those chicken wings," he began, and proceeded to suggest that we try another product next time, one containing cheese. I indicated that cheese is an anathema to me. "Do you like that English cheese, Stilton?" he asked. No, I answered, for it is a cheese, and as stated a moment ago, all cheese must die.
"Have you tried head cheese?" he asked.
Now in England, that question would get you lamped out. He appeared to have no idea what he had said, as my cautious "No..." was met with him telling me that his parents had tried to make him eat head cheese. In thin slices. On bread.
I was tempted to say that it wasn't too late to press charges of child abuse, but Sarah was shushing me. We escaped up the hill at some speed.
Sarah was feeling a bit glum today for various reasons, and my laptop's foibles are still annoying me, so we roused ourselves from junk-food introversion at 4 o'clock to go to "Jazz Vespers" at the church of the untuned duracell campanologists. This is a fine idea; musicians show up, play various songs, and let a pastor do his thing betweentimes. The thematic development wasn't bad and the reverend, who looked a lot like Steve Martin, was a damn good speaker. It's this kind of thing - tales of selflessness, people putting their hands in their pockets, an obvious wish to help the downtrodded - which makes me wish everyone could be basically good and helpful without needing religion as a spur, but apparently it gets things done, so fine. I just wish the disbelieving / unbelieving / bloody lazy masses would help out sometimes, too.
Oh, and I had another subjective confirmation of what I've been gleaning from the papers, which is that Vancouver's homeless problem is something that everyone wishes would go away but which no-one actually is prepared to do anything about. Giving money to panhandlers here is illegal, which is just great. On the way to Futureshop yesterday, we passed a late-teens girl who was freshly on the streets, sitting there asking for money with a sign saying HOMELESS & BROKE. Now I'm sorry, but girls of that age ought not to be HOMELESS & BROKE. I can't believe no-one can think of a solution to unhappy kids running away from home which doesn't involve watching them sitting under shop windows with signs and saying "Homeless people are just lazy drunks". Everyone who's homeless is homeless for a reason, and that reason, quite often, boils down to fear, danger, and money. And if we can't collectively do something about those things, we're a particularly worthless tribe. That's what I think. And I've done something direct and effective about it in the past, so I'm immune to the charge that I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm just a handwringing liberal.
OK, I'm calm now. Calm, yes, calm.
A quick word about our apartment block, The Electra, seeing as how this evening we spent a little time exploring it. Living in an apartment block is damn weird compared to living in a house. First off, getting in is like going to work. We have a key fob which electronically unlocks the main doors. It also persuades the elevators to take us to our floor, or to the sub-basement. We're personally responsible for all garbage disposal; there is a trash compactor (shades of Star Wars) in the basement, along with several massive recycling containers. A communal area on the ground floor contains a small concrete garden, some sofas, a big TV and a pool table (which we tried out - it's very old, the cushions are practically nonexistent, the balls move on gentle curves, and there's no chalk, but it was still fun). In the basement there's a table-tennis room, of all things. It's completely unlike living back in Littlehampton. Even our dotey flat on the seafront, where there was again no garbage collection and I used to pad out onto the street to stuff the municipal bins full of our detritus, was still basically 'in a house'. I have no frame of reference for this aspect of my new life. It feels like living in a hotel room. And I've never done that for longer than a fortnight.
Bedtime now. This blog is now 'up to date'. God only knows whether I'll manage to keep it current. I'll probably do a blog TARDIS next, to cover our trip here last September. And of course tomorrow I go into work for the first time. Five months of our lives went into making this day possible. I just hope it's worth it...
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